dshook30, I COMPLETELY agree that you should be compensated for this and the user in question should be removed IMMEDIATELY. This reeks of someone paying you back using what appears to be newbie accounts that aren't. The recruits in question should also be placed on your roster in place of the 2 you had to sign and the 2 walkons you will have to take.

All that said, as I pointed out in the thread seble just started, we don't all need to overreact to this one bad situation. Don't punish users who are following the rules because of one user who didn't.

Submitted the following ticket: I've been monitoring the dshook30 situation on the forums and found the response somewhat disturbing. As I understand the situation, it was found that there were two teams who were recruiting only dshook's players and they were owned by the same user. However, it was not considered targeting, because there was no evidence of bad blood. It was suggested that this was an experiment by a new user.

Clearly, you as CS and we as users are agreed that if there is targeting with evidence of bad blood, something should be done about it. I understand that this is very difficult to prove and there may have been insufficient evidence in this case. So let's suppose this was an experiment by a new user.

It should be clear to all involved that, if it is an experiment by a new user, it is an illegal (collusive) experiment. If a new user picks up a team with six scholarships and decides to poach all of the recruits of a more prestigious team with fewer scholarships, it is unfortunate for the high-prestige team, but it is, as I understand within the rules (and potentially excellent strategy). However, if one player picks up TWO teams with six scholarships and combines forces to poach recruits from a single user, this is clearly collusion. Assuming they are not going after the same players (which, as I understand, they are not), the two teams are using the intimate knowledge of each other's recruiting practices (borne from being the same user) to make sure their poaching is successful. This is textbook collusion and is no longer a case where it is merely unfortunate for the high-prestige team. Instead of being a victim of a legal, possibly effective experiment, he is now the victim of what I understand to be a highly illegal experiment.

I make no pretense about knowing exactly the most fair way to resolve this, but were it me being the victim of cheating, I would expect at minimum punishment for the perpetrators and some compensation (whether in HD credits or in moving recruits back to my team) for me.

Thanks fellas for your support. WIS has acted and as a compromise I accepted two of the players back and they are now on my team. Here is the new portion of the ticket:

4/17/2013 7:51 AM

Customer Support

There's nothing in the rules against a coach targeting the same recruits as another coach. I understand that it feels wrong, but there's nothing technically preventing it. If there is a history of issues or some other indicator that it's more than a game decision, then we'll generally take action, but that wasn't the case here.

I'm not sure I understand how he had an advantage? He had much lower prestige, so he had to spent a lot more per player to sign those guys. A poor long-term strategy for him, but we can't punish him for that.

4/17/2013 8:03 AM

dshook30

Here is the way that it went. I never delete recruiting emails until after recruiting so I was able to accurately depict just how it happened.

At first I had three considering me (Sat 8pm), two just me (recruits A and B) and one in a battle with S. vermont (recruit C).
Then, I selected my 4th and final guy(Sun 5pm). Considering just me( recruit D).
Two cycles later (Sun 11pm), recruit B consider me and SUNY G/ recruit D considering Union and me.
I decided three battles is not a good idea. SUNY and Union have 8 open spots and could over spend. I will let them go.
Then in two cycles (Mon 5am), Recruits B only considering SUNY G/Recruit D only considering Union.
I then find two replacements and at cycle(Mon 11am) they consider just me (recruits E and F). Recruit C now considering me, S Vermont and Union.
Next cycle(Mon 2pm), Recruit E considering SUNY G and no longer me. Recruit F considering Union and no longer me.
Next cycle, (Mon 5pm) Recruit A now considering SUNY G and me.

All six sign with his teams. No way one coach can do this. That is the unfair advantage he had especially due to the close proximity of his two teams to Mine. Yes he had to spend more than me in order to do it and he had two deep pocketed teams to do it with. Not mention that i was of course blind sided by his efforts. Pick one team and alternate how you go after the players with his two teams. If two coaches did it I agree it just sucks. and since its one guy and two teams violating the policies set forth by WIS (the 1000 miles rule) then it should not be allowed to stand. Also given the fact that the season is yet to start there is time to take action.

I hope you reconsider your position.

4/17/2013 8:30 AM

Customer Support

Name the players you think you deserve and I'll see what I can do.

4/17/2013 8:46 AM

dshook30

I would think that the team that he signed up for second, should be the one that the players should come from. That is SUNY Geneseo. He signed up for that team last Friday.

As a compromise, I would be willing to take on two of the three from that team that he recruited from me. I was going to add a G/SF and two post guys. I added the SF and PF as a reaction to this and will keep those guys. I would say that I should received the PG James Bond and the PF Bernard Johnson.

It's good to see WIS helping out like that. That is a crazy situation to be in the middle of. Thank you for going around and posting this on the conference walls. It will be nice to be aware of this going into the future. I enjoy coaching at D3 so it is likely I may run across this again.

Posted by rednu on 4/15/2013 5:14:00 PM (view original):Send in a ticket -- we had a similar situation in Rupp a couple recruiting cycles back. 2-3 recruits from our top team poached, computer signings/walk-ons for others. The poaching team was then autopiloted the entire year.

ETA: Spasticity would have more details about what CS eventually said/did in that regard. I know the dummy account was eventually linked to another active pay account on WIS.

This was in Rupp. Spasticity's Johnson & Wales team was targeted for at least one recruit, and so was my Rivier team. They did link the poacher to an active coach, and he claimed (I'll let the reader judge its credibility) that the poaching team belonged to his son.

In that case, even though there was some implication of "bad blood," no recruits were returned to us. I'm glad to see a new precedent being set here! Congrats, dshook30!

Fun fact: The poaching team disappeared the next season and the guy he had poached from me left his team (probably since he hadn't given him the start he promised) and I signed him as a sophomore.

Posted by sol_phenom3 on 4/17/2013 9:45:00 AM (view original):Glad to see this resolved. Nonetheless this is so odd. I'd really like to know who this person who specifically targeted your recruits was and why in the hell they did this.

Resolved? I hope so. This is only resolved if seble treats this as an abnormal isolated incident.

Seble has another thread querying us with a poll on multiple teams by one account, aliases, etc.

Pandora's box has been opened.

I've been playing this game a LONG TIME. One thing that has never changed since I began playing this game is complaining about aliases, multiple accounts, collusion and FREEHD. The game is still going on. If this game is still going on 5 years from now, I promise you people will continue to complain.

You can't control any of these for many reasons. I'll list a few.

FREEHD in my opinion is probably the biggest issue of all. I think EVERY veteran has created a ghost team with FREEHD to experiment with something. They'd be lying if they said they haven't. On the other hand, the only reason I'm playing this game is because I clicked a FREEHD link from a Bill Simmons Sports guy column long time ago.

I wonder if some of the users who said they submitted a ticket for you in this thread would do it again if they knew they'd be LOSING about 2/3's of the teams they currently manage if seble decides to do cleaning of aliases and multiple accounts?

I know of a conference in one world where the majority of its conference members are family members where more than 1 live under the same roof. They love the game and have invited other people to play and now many in that world are there because of that one family.

We live in the age of smart phones. Anyone can get around the IP address thing if they want if they use their iphone for one team, their home pc for another, and their mother's ipad for a 3rd. The inverse is true too. What if you are playing the game with a friend and he decides to log onto his team when he's on your PC or using your wifi.

I never got the 1000 miles argument either. Over time you build relationships with coaches who have built dynasties like you. Even if one coach is on the East coast and the other is on the West, what stops them from sharing a Google spreadsheet of their FSS..

Another thing to remember is this game is being played by a diverse group of people. I'm in my 40's and have a kid in college. I'm in a league with a guy who's in his 60's and retired. I have a rivalry with a team that has been built into a dynasty by a kid who just turned 16. We need to remember this. Embrace this. Each person may get something completely different out of the game be it winning a championship or winning a recruit from a high prestige team.

FREEHD was the reason the issue discussed in this thread happened. If something needs eliminated, eliminate that.

FSS would be where I'd look next if you really want to attack collusion. I played this game before FSS and liked it. It was a different game. But the issue there was once you build a dynasty, you were hard to stop. High prestige with more money was even more powerful then. But if you eliminate FSS, I'd probably quit. Recruiting is my favorite part of the game now and I love the dynamic that FSS brought to the game. I really enjoy doing the math at the last moment to evaluate whether I should attempt to take a recruit from another coach at the last cycle or two.

Glad to see the issue resolved in this manner, although I wonder how much the CS person knows about D3 recruiting when he asserts the dummy accounts would have had to "spend a lot more" due to prestige differences. At D3, that's like, what, an extra HV maybe?

Posted by rednu on 4/17/2013 10:47:00 AM (view original):Glad to see the issue resolved in this manner, although I wonder how much the CS person knows about D3 recruiting when he asserts the dummy accounts would have had to "spend a lot more" due to prestige differences. At D3, that's like, what, an extra HV maybe?

right. A lot of the "inside information" that has been posted out here over the years came from people experimenting with ghost accounts. I can't remember who posted this, but it was a long time ago. If you really want to learn about HD, do this. Open a ghost account with FREEHD and then RECRUIT AGAINST YOURSELF! Then you learn stuff like what you just posted.